Moments that make MRT rides worth the while. #day1 of #year30
7. Marry someone who makes you laugh. I don’t just mean someone who makes you smile, I mean laugh! The kind of laughter which makes your sides hurt, and makes an entire room of people stare at you and think you’re crazy. Life becomes complex sometimes, problems happen, difficult people come and go—you’ll need a really good laugh every now and then. Laughter is still the best medicine, in most cases.
8. Marry someone whom you can be quiet with for hours and still think you had the best date in the world. I read something like this somewhere, and it’s sooo true. You come to a point in your married life (about a day after your wedding haha) when you run out of stories to tell, or jokes to laugh about, or things to do. Some of the best “dates” I had with my husband are in coffee shops—me in front of my laptop, and him reading a book, or vice versa. Once in a while he would lift his head from the book he’s holding and give me a smile; and then we would carry on with whatever we’re doing, and, and, I’d shrug it off but deep inside.. kilig to the bones.
4. The days are long but the years are fast. One day you’re just cramming your undergraduate thesis, the next day you’re living your dream job or starting a family. Or.. one day you were just saying “I do” and marrying your best friend, the next day you’re a mother and there’s no turning back.
Time flies, no need to rush. Make the most out of every season in your life.
5. Preserve memories, keep remembrances. Our minds can only remember so much, so try to preserve memories as much as you can. Take lots of photographs, keep a planner, write a journal, timestamp milestones, publish a blog even. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, if used in moderation, are good tools in keeping memories. Use them well.
Someday you’ll want to look back, and these little remembrances that you’ve collected through the years will help you appreciate how far you’ve come.
6. In the midst of memory-keeping, don’t forget to live. Some days you become too involved in keeping memories that you forget to make memories. If you must process photographs or publish a blog, ahhhh, learn from me—don’t allow it to take up so much time! What’s the point of keeping memories when you don’t have any memories to keep? :)
3. Wherever you are, be all there. You’re part of a generation of people who seemed to have been born with ADHD—restless individuals who can hardly stay in one place for an extended period of time. Admit it, more often than not, you manage to be physically where you are, but your mind and your heart are somewhere else.
Wherever you are, God placed you there. So stop wishing you’re somewhere else and start enjoying the here and now.
2. It’s impossible to go through life alone. I’m not saying it’s difficult, or challenging. I’m saying it’s impossible.
Trust me, you can’t do it on your own. You need someone to journey this life with. Someone to talk to, laugh with, cry with. Someone who’s not afraid to correct you when you’re screwing up, or to pull you up when you’re feeling down. Someone you can celebrate big and small victories with. Someone who gives you bear hugs on bad days. Someone who greets you “good morning” to start the day, and makes sure you’re safe at home each night.
Above all, you need someone who loves you for everything you are, and whom you can love back and care for the same way.
If you have that someone in your life—a friend, your family, your husband—then you are very, very blessed.
1. No one can ever reciprocate a mother’s love.
Which is a little sad, in a way, because sometimes I look at my babies and wish they could at least feel the love that’s bursting from my heart.
Oh, as a mother you can feel that your kids love you too, even though at 6 months old they don’t really have a concept of “love” just yet. You feel it whenever your baby gently touches your face or pokes your cheeks with wide-eyed curiosity, as if studying you and seeing you in a way nobody has seen you before. Or whenever your baby wakes up in the middle of the night and you pick her up and she rests her head in your chest and she looks up at you in the dark and smiles beneath her teary eyes as if to say “thank you Mommy”.
You feel it. You feel your children’s love. But the love you have for them? They will never really fathom how much.
You’ll never know how much love a mother is capable of giving until you’re a mother yourself.
So we’ve settled back home from the ATAS family reunion. And even though we had extra challenges having to carry around and take care of two babies, away from their comfort zone, during the past two days, we still came home with full hearts. Praise the Lord for giving us families from both sides with good genes (yun), genuine love for one another, and most of all, great love for the Lord. As parents, we find peace and joy that Dawn and Rain will grow up having these blessings too. :)
